Best Movies Of 2009

The final Best Of list of the decade! Makes me a little…I dunno…nostalgic? Weepy? Excited? Something. It definitely makes me feel something. Here are my top movies of 2009. Note! I haven’t seen Avatar or The Fantastic Mr. Fox yet, both of which may very well deserve a place on this list, but we’ll all just have to deal with their absence, okay? Here we go…

10. (500) Days of Summer – The further away I got from this movie, the less I liked it. Zooey just really didn’t do it for me. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, however, rocked my world, so it makes it on my list.

9. Up – I rewatched this a few weeks ago and it’s still magical, but mostly I just like the talking dogs.

8. Star Trek – So much fun. Truly not my father’s Star Trek.

7. Precious – A tough movie about physical and sexual abuse. I saw it with my mom and nothing has ever made me feel so lucky to have her.

6. Zombieland – Funnier than The Hangover. Plus, Zombies. Hello!

5. Food Inc. – A disturbing look at food manufacturing in the US. Seriously, how scary is our food?! Can we please get back to eating things made by, like, the earth?

4. Where the Wild Things Are – Spike Jonze did a phenomenal job recreating one of the seminal works of my childhood. I don’t understand why more people didn’t check it out.

3. Up In the Air – A film for our times. Great performances, great story, great ending. Jason Reitman is well on his way to become one of the country’s great filmmakers.

2. The Hurt Locker – Another film for our times, I guess. A different slice of life in the Iraq war, packed with action and emotion. Jeremy Renner is, deservedly, finally on the radar.

1. Inglorious Basterds – I’m shocked to find this at the top of my list, really. When I saw it back in August, it blew me away, but I never thought it would be my favorite film this year. Just goes to show…QT is still a genius...and it was kind of a crap year at the movies.

Honorable Mentions: Away We Go, Julie & Julia, Adventureland, Every Little Step, District 9, A Serious Man

What you got?

Rank: Quentin Tarantino*

*[You might want to check out the Writer's Note at the end of this before reading]

I finally saw Inglorious Basterds over the weekend. Like Coen Brothers movies, whenever I see a new Quentin Tarantino film, I have a compulsive need to compare it to his others. With apologies to Grindhouse (because I didn’t see it), here’s how I would rank Tarantino's movies:

5. Jackie Brown – Chronically underrated. Even though I’m putting it at #5, this is still an awesome movie. It should have done to Pam Greer’s career what Pulp Fiction did for Travolta.

4. Inglorious Basterds – I really enjoyed this movie, but my worst fears came true: A summer full of people telling me it’s the MOVIE OF THE YEAR!!!! set the bar too high, and I couldn’t help but nitpick it a little. I’d like to see it again, a second viewing may bump it into third place, ahead of ….

3. Reservoir Dogs – The movie that taught the world how - with good writing and the right soundtrack - extreme violence could be transformed into high art. In other words, the movie that introduced the world to Tarantino.

2. Kill Bill Vols. I & II – I count these movies as one film, as they were originally intended to be. Alone, they are decent, though certainly lower on the list. Together, I think they’re something akin to a masterpiece. I know not a lot of people disagree with me. Those people should get their wrongness looked at.

1. Pulp Fiction – Still the gold standard. Who would have thought Rashomon and 1970s kitsch could mash up so well? Infinitely re-watchable and quotable, I’m not sure Tarantino will ever out-do Pulp Fiction. And he doesn’t need to.

What do you guys think?

* Writer's Note: So, I just realized Red did a really similar post to this like, a month ago. (And when I say "really similar," I mean basically the same thing. (Well, not exactly the same, because she included films he just wrote, and her order was different. But still)). I wish I could use the, "Hey, I don't read this blog," excuse, but I can't, because I do. I apologize for the redundancy, and I hope we can all still be friends. Red will be back to protect me from myself next week.

Two Quick Things...

1. Inglourious Basterds is brilliant. Everyone I know who saw it this weekend agrees. Go see it now!

2. Why did no one tell me there's a movie out in which Rory Gilmore and Matt Saracen fall in love?! Let's keep on top of these things, people!

Top 5: Quentin Tarantino Movies

Inglourious Basterds comes out today and in honor of QT's latest flick, here are my Top 5 QT films:


5. Kill Bill: Vol. 1 - Yes, I know the 2 parts make one whole movie, but I way preferred this homage to Samurai movies over the David Carradine heavy, spaghetti western-esque Vol. 2.

4. Natural Born Killers - NBK brought together two of my favorite Hollywood filmmakers...Tarantino and Oliver Stone. QT is only responsible for the story here, but what a story it is.

3. Reservoir Dogs - Tarantino's first big thing, many people consider it his best work. While I totally enjoyed it, it's #3 on my list.

2. True Romance - Penned by QT and directed by Tony Scott, this is one of my all time favorites. Christian Slater totally peaked in 1993. Bonus points for a pre-Sopranos James Gandolfini.

1. Pulp Fiction - To say this movie changed my life could be an overstatement, but it's not. It sparked my love of film and Tarantino. I even drew a totally awesome rendition of the Jack Rabbit Slims scene and I don't draw!!! Absolutely in my top films of all time.

I'll be headed to the theater this weekend to see where Inglourious Basterds lands on the list. What about you?

Brad Pitt is Beloved

Brad was on Real Time with Bill Maher this week to promote his new movie and his campaign to rebuild NOLA and his appearance totally sums up why everyone loves him. He's not the most eloquent guy you'll ever hear, but seriously...could anyone other than Brad proclaim himself an atheist and still be so well liked? I think not. Check out the interview in two parts:

Part I


Part II


P.S. How excited are we all that Neal Schweiber is in Inglourious Basterds?!?

Add This to Your Queue: Spaced

Anglophiles, rejoice! The hilarious British sitcom, Spaced, is finally available on DVD in the US. The show stars the adorable Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes as Tim and Daisy, roommates who pretend they are dating to land their ideal flat. It's totally not as Friends-y as it sounds. The lovely Edgar Wright (director of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz) helms the series, so you know that means some crazy business (like a drunken landlady and a zombie episode). Apparently, the DVD includes commentaries from Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Diablo Cody (further proving my suspicions she and Edgar are dating. Lucky bitch) and Matt Stone, among others. The Spaced team is also on a 4 city US tour to promote the DVD release. They will be at Comic-Con in San Diego this week and I will be stuck at work. Sometimes, life is really unfair.

And, hey look. I found the first episode on YouTube:



You're welcome.

Reel Resurrection: True Romance

I’ve heard that Christian Slater is going to be on a new TV show this fall on USA. I really hope that’s true - and that the show is halfway decent - because somewhere in the chamber that holds En Vogue and a boy from my 5th grade class named Paul, there is, and always will be, a Christian Slater-shaped hole in my heart.

So it’s kind of weird that I’d never seen True Romance, but that was remedied last night and it didn’t disappoint. I think this movie still turns up on TBS occasionally, so maybe it doesn’t totally require a “resurrection,” but to hell with your standards and rules!

In addition to being a classic Slater performance and showcasing the glory of leopard-print spandex, this movie also sort of introduced the world to Quentin Tarantino, since he wrote it a year before Pulp Fiction came out. (A year after Reservoir Dogs, but if memory serves, Reservoir Dogs gained in fame after PF).

In standard Tarantino fashion, the movie involved a lot of guns, blood, comic books and Elvis references. Its basically about Christian Slater meeting a call girl (Patricia Arquette, she of the spandex) and they fall in love, get married, kill her pimp, accidentally steal a suitcase full of his coke, and try to sell it in Hollywood, unwittingly getting the Mob on their tail.

What’s really cool about True Romance though is the cast. I was blown away watching the opening credits by how many huge names are tucked away because they weren’t big yet: Brad Pitt is hilarious as a stoner roommate; James Gandolfini is a miniature version of his future self as (what else?) a mafia enforcer. Not to mention more noticeable stints by Christopher Walken, Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Sizemore, Dennis Hopper, Gary Oldman and a semi-hidden Val Kilmer.

It’s always nice to have a funny, early ‘90s shoot ‘em up to watch. But it was especially nice to have Christian Slater in his prime one more time. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed him until he was beating up Balki Bartokomous in an elevator.

Yeah, it’s that good.